


December Dinner at the Brigades

by LittleRedRoseontheValley (TheLifeAndLiesOfFerns)



Category: Rules of Engagement (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M, Family Drama, Harassment, Power Imbalance, Workplace
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:27:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27944531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLifeAndLiesOfFerns/pseuds/LittleRedRoseontheValley
Summary: Leo is being harassed by his family. He finds another distraction to brighten his evening.
Relationships: Leo Rys/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 7





	December Dinner at the Brigades

Leo was just a needy, entitled man-child, and the holidays only made those tendencies to come afloat more pronouncedly. Every dinner in December was an increasingly disastrous spectacle, as they inched closer and closer towards Christmas Eve.

Now, she wonders how he will ever outdo himself on the 25th. She had not thought the night would progress into this. Peeling sticky layers of leather from a piss drunk prince, his bright eyes tinged with a haze from the wine. He was swaying, a dance not meant for her, but to appease the alcohol that had taken hold in his blood. A firm hand had been planted on her shoulder, to help him keep straight.

“Try to stand still,” She said, tugging at his undershirt. “Do you always drink so much?”

Leo huffed, a crooked smile lighting up his face. “Only in the presence of family.”

The time between Christmas and the Orthodox New Year was a respite for the Cordonian aristocracy. A time to spend with family, not at court, and so the social season comes to a break every year. Constantine seizes those occasions to pretend to care about his children and wife, which usually entails in complaints and judgemental stares.

When he was a kid, he had no choice but to take on the abuse. As he grew older, he tried to keep it together in benefit of his younger brother. Now, Liam was a big boy, and so he drunk bottle after bottle of whatever alcoholic beverage was available, to try to escape to the insides of his mind.

It would usually end in a shameful display such as this one. With him, bathed in wine, swaying and trying to balance a chalice between his fingertips, tipping it up to gather the last of the drink into his mouth. He looked annoyed at the last drop, as if it was all the cup’s fault for running empty and not his ravenous thirst.

“Do you really hate them as much as the rumours suggest?” The maid asked, trying not to stare too long at his now exposed torso, the muscles writhing, keeping him standing with a drunken balancing act.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He said, pointedly. “You’d have fresh gossip for your handmaiden friends.”

She tugged at his belt a little too hard in her annoyance at the suggestion, in effect, pulling him closer. “They wouldn’t find gossip about you half as interesting as what mischief you get up to.”

His brow raised, curiously.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked, pushing his hips forward to assist in her disrobing of him.

“I just meant…” She grunted, tugging fruitlessly at the hem of his breeches. “They prefer to hear about who’s sleeping with whom. I doubt familial animosity would interest them.”

Leo smirked, sliding his hands over hers. “Then let’s give them something fun to gossip about.”

He led her hands, helping she undo his breeches. She turned her head when his pants fell, leaving the prince totally bare.

Leo gave a soft laugh. “I see that you’re not interested.”

She faced him with a frown, keeping her eyes level with his. “Did I say that?”

He wanted to kiss her cute, furrowed brow. She was a pretty girl, probably barely eighteen against his twenty-six, immigrant from some Cordonian mountain county further inland. Her figure was alluring and seductive, even with the hair tied up and wearing that ghastly maid uniform provided by the Royal Household.

Likely a virgin, as all maids were required to prove they “purity” upon hiring.

“Then?” He stood still, slack-jawed and flirty. “Wouldn’t a prince please you?”

“An entitled prince wouldn’t.” She told him, picking up the wine drenched clothes and putting them into the laundry basket.

She could feel the heat of his body behind her, inching ever closer.

“Entitled? Is that what you call it?” He watched as she filled the basin, preparing to soak the clothes in warm, soapy water. “Then what would you call the way you put your hands on me so eagerly? Trying to clean the wine from my thighs, so dangerously close to my…”

“Why are you toying with me?” The girl cut him off.

Leo paused, turning her face towards his with a finger under her chin. “Toying? Is that what you’re calling this? You’re the one always dangling yourself within my reach then pulling away whenever I show how badly I want you. You’re the one who’s toying with me. You want me just as much.”

Her face distorts in disgust. “I’m not some bubble-brained maiden who yearns to sleep with royalty for relevance. I just wanted to help you have a good night.”

Leo took a step back, shrinking a little after he realized what harm his teasing had brought. “Yes. You’ve been sweet to me. I guess I mistook that for romantic interest. I’m sorry.”

She released a breath. “It’s okay, just… Come, help me scrub these.”

“A prince? Doing his own laundry?” Leo displayed mock horror. “While naked?”

She tugged on his hand. “Is it any worse than having to go back there and spend the evening with your family?”

It really was not, so he got down to work. Pink, bubbly water sloshed, and Leo may have purposefully pushed the bucket so hard that water splashed down her front. Unfortunately, the dark fabric of the uniform did not lent itself for revealing what laid beneath.

He wonders if he can change that when he is king.

As she were hanging his clothes up to dry, she thought to mention, “Your fresh clothes have been ready for you this whole time. Right there.”

She pointed towards a neatly folded outfit on the counter opposite to the washing pew.

Leo shook his head. “You forgot to mention it until now?”

He suppressed his smirk, she was not even trying to disguise her ploy. That was fine, he was happy to play along, especially with her wettened dress clinging to her body like that, waking up his royal staff, as to say.

She shrugged. “I now know how big you are beneath your breeches. What finer gossip to tell the rest of the handmaidens?”

Leo to seize her by the shoulders, both of them laughing conspiratorially.

“You wouldn’t tell them about how strongly the entitled, rakish prince came onto you?” He asked, haughtily.

She looked up, into those sapphire eyes that were shrouded in emotions she would never know. She could only see how pretty they were.

“No.” She whispered, bringing her hands up to cradle his cold face. “Because now I see how lovely he truly is.”

Leo smirked, full of himself. “Would a lovely prince please you?”

“Yes.” She replied, pressing a hand to his warm chest. “And as much as I like seeing this lovely prince without his clothes on, I think it’s about time we headed back.”

She went to leave, but he caught her arm.

“I think I need some help getting dressed.” He smirked, pulling her back in.

They spent the next hour together, after which they clandestinely parted ways, him dressed on point again, her with a dishevelled skirt.

In the morning, the Royal Guard had conveniently found a missing silver knife under her panties drawer, and she was promptly fired, with the warning that, if she ever came near the palace or the Royal Family, she would be arrested and thrown into Dormition Tower, never to come back.

Leo is just a needy, entitled man-child. Every end-of-the-year, he would find a naïve maid that thought that she could change him, that thought that could make him fall in love, bed her and then dispose himself of her. It was what filled his empty, lonely heart.

One could call him cruel. He does not care.


End file.
